Erin Reed, author of the Erin In The Morning newsletter on SubStack, discusses the state of anti-trans legislation moving its way around the country in 2024.
Erin Reed then joins, diving right into the busy 2024 in state-level anti-trans legislation in the US, first parsing through the media’s insistence on emphasizing bigoted and misinformed perspectives – as seen in the New York Times’s recent piece by Pamela Paul – and how the arguments seen in those texts are perfectly reflected in the statehouse hearings in red states.
I posted about this but missed the part of a teen girl needed police protection, had to go into hiding because some woman thought she was not pretty and small enough to be a girl. Think of what that means. Beau says it better than I can. I really hope the point gets through. Hugs. Scottie
I like how he shows the lies and misinformation tweets that the right uses as an excuse to pass these laws. He shows how she mentions trans women don’t belong on women’s teams because a clearly bigger and stronger trans woman picks up an opposing player and body slams her. But here is the thing. There was no trans woman. The person in question was born female. Not male, born female. Assigned female at birth. Hey some people are bigger than others. That is because sexual mix in the body shows that it is rare to be completely male / completely female. Sex is a spectrum no matter what your reproductive organs are. He also points out that only 23 people under the age of 18 had breast surgery and it is not known if they were because of medical issues or pain. Many girls have breast augmentation or reduction before 18. Plus a lot of girls have cancer of the breast or other such issue requiring removal. And remember in Canada like in the US a minor requires a parent or guardian to approve of medical treatments. He also points out the newest study find 94% of trans people happier after transitioning. Also I love his calm collected delivery. Lance of the serfs points out knee surgery regrets are as 30%, yet no one is protesting outside those doctors offices. Hugs. Scottie
Canadian Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has come to the defence of Alberta’s Premier and United Conservative Party leader Danielle Smith following her announcement of new transgender restrictions for the province.
He was reminded that that is not a legal requirement, only an anti-trans anti-LGBTQIA desperate wish that teachers and schools would do. Why? If a child doesn’t feel comfortable being themselves with / around, there is maybe a good reason. They live their parents, not school officials. But the republicans want to use the child’s fear of their parent’s response to keep them hidden at school so they are not outed. Plus it gives the parent time to try to force the kid to be straight and cis while they have control. That is the goal, to force the LGBTQIA out of the public view. To remove acceptance and tolerance for non-straight non-cis people. To pretend the entire country is straight and cis, that anything else is abnormal and wrong. These republicans can not accept the modern age or that everyone else is not living by their idea of god’s will. What happened to the idea of live and let live? Later in the article a judge claims that parents have the right to control what their minor children are called. Yet when kids are taunted and harassed, the teachers don’t rush to interfere or send notes home to the parents. Seems a very one-sided policy. Hugs. Scottie
LGBTQ+ rights advocates saw the letters as seeking policies that put transgender and nonbinary youth in physical danger but also as an attempt to tell transgender people that they’re not welcome. Jordan Smith, leader of the Kansas chapter of the LGBTQ+ rights group Parasol Patrol, said forced outing will create more anxiety for students and even push some back into the closet.
“It’s like they don’t want us to exist in public places,” said Smith, who is nonbinary.
Kansas’ attorney general is telling public schools that they’re required to tell parents their children are transgender or nonbinary even if they’re not out at home
ByJOHN HANNA Associated Press and GEOFF MULVIHILL Associated Press
February 9, 2024, 12:18 AM
TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas’ attorney general is telling public schools they’re required to tell parents their children are transgender or nonbinary even if they’re not out at home, though Kansas is not among the states with a law that explicitly says to do that.
Republican Kris Kobach’s action was his latest move to restrict transgender rights, following his successful efforts last year to temporarily block Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s administration from changing the listings for sex on transgender people’s birth certificates and driver’s licenses to reflect their gender identities. It’s also part of a trend of GOP attorneys general asserting their authority in culture war issues without a specific state law.
Kobach maintains that failing to disclose when a child is socially transitioning or identifying as nonbinary at school violates parents’ rights. He sent letters in December to six school districts and the state association for local school board members, then followed up with a public statement Thursday after four districts, all in northeast Kansas, didn’t rewrite their policies.
The Kansas attorney general’s letters to superintendents of three Kansas City-area districts, Topeka’s superintendent and the Kansas Association of School Boards accused them of having “surrendered to woke gender ideology.” His letters didn’t say what he would do if they didn’t specifically require teachers and administrators to out transgender and nonbinary students.
LGBTQ+ rights advocates saw the letters as seeking policies that put transgender and nonbinary youth in physical danger but also as an attempt to tell transgender people that they’re not welcome. Jordan Smith, leader of the Kansas chapter of the LGBTQ+ rights group Parasol Patrol, said forced outing will create more anxiety for students and even push some back into the closet.
“It’s like they don’t want us to exist in public places,” said Smith, who is nonbinary.
Five states have laws requiring schools to inform parents if their children use different pronouns, socially transition to a gender different than the one assigned at birth or present as nonbinary, according to the Movement Advancement Project, which supports transgender rights. Another six have laws that encourage it, the project says.
Kansas is on neither list. A bill introduced last year would bar schools from using the preferred pronouns for a student under 18 without a parent or guardian’s written permission, but it did not clear a Senate committee.
GOP lawmakers did enact a law over Kelly’s veto that ended the state’s legal recognition of transgender and nonbinary identities by defining male and female for legal purposes based on a person’s “reproductive anatomy” identified at birth. But Republican state Sen. Renee Erickson of Wichita, a vocal supporter and a former middle school principal, said it does not cover issues about whether schools must inform parents about a child’s gender identity at school.
Erickson said she now favors taking a look at the bill before a Senate committee, saying it addresses a “policy gap.”
“The parents have a right to know what is affecting their child,” she said.
In 2022 a federal judge hearing a northeast Kansas teacher’s lawsuit concluded that her school district’s policy of not informing parents of a child’s gender identity at school without their consent violated a parent’s constitutional right to raise children as they see fit. The district settled the case, paid the teacher $95,000 and revoked the policy.
The judge said parents’ constitutional rights include a say “in what a minor child is called and by what pronouns they are referred.”
But Kobach cited neither that case nor Kansas law in his letters to the state school boards association, the Topeka school district and the Kansas City, Shawnee Mission and Olathe districts in the Kansas City area. Instead he cited U.S. Supreme Court decisions going back as far as 1923 that he said affirmed parents’ rights. His office released copies Thursday.
He told each district that its policies on transgender students violated parents’ rights and said two other districts in the Wichita area quickly rewrote their policies after his letter arrived. In his letter to the school boards group, he noted it provides legal help to local districts.
In each letter he said withholding such information from parents would be “arrogant beyond belief.”
State attorneys general serve as the lead lawyers for state governments, and most also oversee at least some criminal prosecutions. But they also look outward, and Kobach’s letters weren’t the first to issue warnings not grounded in a specific state law.
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita launched an online form Tuesday to gather complaints about “objectionable curricula, policies, or programs affecting children” in education. His office said it will follow up on submissions that may violate Indiana law but added that materials don’t have to meet that criteria to be posted for people to review.
Last year, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sent requests to at least two medical providers that don’t operate in his state for information about providing gender-affirming care as part of an investigation, though it’s not clear what Texas law would cover them. Washington state’s attorney general invoked a law there to block Seattle Children’s Hospital from complying, and QueerMed, a Georgia-based telehealth provider, said on its website that it will not comply.
As for Kobach, Tom Alonzo, a Kansas City LGBTQ+ rights advocate, argued that the attorney general is bent on “intentional marginalization” of transgender people. Micah Kubic, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, said Kobach is ignoring students’ right to privacy and called the attorney general’s stance “cruel” and “dangerous.”
While the Kansas City district declined comment, the other three districts said they deal with transgender and nonbinary students case by case and seek to work with parents. The Topeka district expressed confidence that its practices are legal. The four districts are among the largest in Kansas and together have more than 88,000 students or 18% of the total for the state’s public schools.
The strongest response came from Michelle Hubbard, the Shawnee Mission superintendent, in her district’s response in December. She chided Kobach for not citing actual cases in the district of parents’ rights being violated and suggested that he was relying on “misinformation” from “partisan sources.”
“We are not caricatures from the polarized media, but rather real people who work very hard in the face of intense pressure on public schools,” Hubbard wrote.
___
Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Associated Press writer Isabella Volmert in Indianapolis contributed.
Israeli airstrikes occurred Saturday on the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza strip, leaving more than 100 Palestinians dead, including children. The attacks came hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had asked the military to plan for evacuation ahead of a ground invasion.
Due to the recent wave of kids — especially gay teenagers — who’ve been bullied to the point of taking their own lives, the U.S. media’s begun talking about bullying & teen suicide. It’s so horrible that Americans have finally begun to do what we do best – fight with each other over what to do and never accomplish anything. Distributed by Tubemogul.
Please notice the legislators use their religious beliefs to force their religion on all people in the state. My god doesn’t make mistakes so you have to put your body at risk having your rapists baby even if you are a little child yourself, and you have a different faith than mine. My god, my god, my god, they scream as they stamp their feet. Worship my god the way I do they yell at people.Women are nothing but vessels for a man’s use, pleasure, and birthing his off spring. She should be happy to be property. I know it is so because I believe it is what a mythical being told me that I follow. They don’t get that not everyone goes to their church and wants to live by their idea of god’s laws / church doctrine. I can not decide if it is pure ego that thinks they have a right to force their religious views on everyone, if it is ego that makes them ignore all science in favor of belief, or if it is a desperate need to please their god and show it that they are worthy of him. Like a child desperate to please an abusive parent. Hugs. Scottie
Missouri was the first state in the nation to ban abortion and seemingly remains determined to be as cruel as possible.
Missouri state Sen. Rick Brattin said forced pregnancy and birth could be “the greatest healing agent” for rape victims in his arguments against adding a rape exception to the state’s abortion ban.
Photo: Rick Brattin/Facebook
In 2022, Missouri was the first state to ban abortion when Roe v. Wade was overturned, and anti-abortion lawmakers in the state are continuing their streak of cruelty. On Wednesday, across party lines, Republicans rejected an amendment that would have added rape and incest exceptions to the state’s total ban. Democratic state Sen. Tracy McCreery proposed the amendment by pleading with her colleagues to “show an ounce of compassion” for victims. As it currently exists, McCreery said the ban tells victims, “We’re going to force you to give birth, even if that pregnancy resulted from forcible rape by a family member, a date, an ex-husband or a stranger.”
As if voting to reject McCreery’s amendment weren’t insulting enough to victims, state Sen. Rick Brattin (R) explained his vote by arguing that being forced to carry their rapist’s baby could be “healing” for victims. “If you want to go after the rapist, let’s give him the death penalty. Absolutely, let’s do it,” Brattin said. “But not the innocent person caught in-between that, by God’s grace, may even be the greatest healing agent you need in which to recover from such an atrocity.” Seemingly trying to make his comments as horrific as possible, Brattin also managed to compare abortion to slavery.
Another Republican, state Sen. Sandy Crawford, argued against rape exceptions because “God doesn’t make mistakes”: “Even in some of these very horrific cases, there was a reason that God allowed there to be a child out of this situation,” Crawford elaborated. Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Bill Eigel—who’s running for governor—inexplicably claimed McCreery’s proposed amendment would “bring back the institution of abortion so that kids can get abortions in the state of Missouri,” stating, “A one-year-old could get an abortion under this.” To this, a Democratic senator returned, “I don’t know that a one-year-old could get pregnant, Senator.” I really don’t know what to say to any of this, except that Republican lawmakers clearly have no good arguments in support of their heinous laws and the violence they’re inflicting on survivors and pregnant people—and that becomes clearer every day when they start inexplicably invoking pregnant one-year-olds.
Missouri legislators’ rejection of a rape exception comes after, last month, new research estimates that in states that have banned abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe in June 2022, there have been an estimated 64,565 rape-induced pregnancies. Of these 64,565 pregnancies, 91% were in states with bans that lacked rape exceptions.
Missouri Republicans’ arguments against a rape exception are the latest contribution to anti-abortion politicians’ hall-of-shame hits on the topic of rape and abortion. Over a decade ago, failed Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin gave us “legitimate rape” (his claim that there’s no need for rape exceptions because “legitimate rape” won’t result in pregnancy). And ever since—certainly, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe—it feels like every other month there’s a new outlandish, wildly offensive comment from anti-abortion officials about abortion and rape. Shortly after Roe fell, a Utah Republican said she “[trusts] women enough to control when they allow a man to ejaculate inside of them and to control that intake of semen,” therefore negating the need for abortion for rape victims.
Also in 2022, a Michigan Republican candidate said he told his daughters “If rape is inevitable, you should just lie back and enjoy it.” A Republican state lawmaker in Ohio called pregnancy from rape “an opportunity.” Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) acknowledged the abortion ban in his state could force child rape survivors to carry their rapist’s babies, but shrugged off the idea of personally doing anything about it: “I would prefer a different outcome than that, but that’s not the debate today in Arkansas. It might be in the future, but for now, the law triggered with only one exception … in the case of the life of the mother,” he said in June 2022. In other cases, Republican lawmakers have refused to even address rape victims speaking out against their laws altogether.
McCreery introduced the proposed rape exception as an amendment to a Republican-sponsored bill that would continue Missouri’s ban on taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood. Democratic lawmakers in other states have also run into problems trying to add exceptions—including rape exceptions—to their state abortion bans, and rape victims and advocates have argued that the processes to access rape exceptions are too cumbersome for victims. “It may not be today or tomorrow, but down the line, this could happen to someone you love,” Hadley Duvall, a rape survivor who’s helping to lead an effort to add a rape exception to Kentucky’s ban, told Jezebel in January about the prevalence of sexual violence. “And if you can look them in the eye and tell them ‘You don’t deserve this medical procedure, even though your innocence was taken from you, your health is in danger’—I don’t know how they live with themselves.”
Per Jezebel, Brattin went on to compare abortion to slavery. Brattin first appeared here in 2017 when he declared that there’s a “distinction” between human beings and LGBTQ people. That earned him a scathing rebuke from the editorial board of the Kansas City Star. In December 2023, Brattin appeared here when he authored or co-sponsored nearly two dozen anti-LGBTQ bills. One of his bills would make it a felony to perform drag in the view of children, another would institute a K-6 “Don’t Say Gay” law.
In 2014, Brattin introduced a bill that would require women seeking abortion to get written permission from the father of the fetus. In 2022, Brattin ran for the US House, finishing second in the GOP primary.
My aunt had a former student who was a result of a rape. He is now in prison as a result of several acts of violence against different people due to anger issues. Anger issues brought on in large part by his mother who made no secret of the fact he wasn’t wanted and how much she resented him. This fucker has no clue what he is talking about. P.S. Even in ones with “happy endings” the woman in each story made clear it was HER choice and no one else should get to make that for them.
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